Wednesday, March 11

After finally landing in Boston this morning at 3am I finally have regained all 5 of my senses, allowing me to attempt to wrap up things down in Fort Myers, Florida. Of course you can't tell a whole hell of a lot from Spring Training, the games don't matter and of the starters who aren't at the World Baseball Classic, they only play a few innings. Regardless, here are some thoughts, predictions, and players to keep an eye out for.

Daniel Bard looked very good in the two relief appearances we saw him. A lot of people are high on this kid, but seeing him pitch in person was impressive. The Sox bullpen is pretty deep, but an injury could result in him coming up. The kid brings the heat!

Julio Lugo is playing better. Again, it's Spring Training who cares, but he's making the plays at short stop and he's batting over .500. I think he knew he had to work hard in the off season and come into camp ready to play. Looks like he'll at least start the year as the starting short stop with Lowrie playing the role as the utility man.

Mike Lowell seems like he'll be ready to start the season at third base. I'm sure they take it easy with him with days off when he needs, but we saw him sprinting before Tuesday's game and he's getting at bats as the DH.

They don't have a radar gun at the City of Palms Park, which we found thoroughly annoying. Maybe the brass can spend a few dollars and install one for next year.

Memo to the Tampa Bay Rays: you have proved that you can play in the AL East, drop all the cheesy minor league gimmicks, it's annoying.

I hate paying for parking, if I did one of the "25 things about me" on facebook it would be on there followed by a rant where I quoted Thomas Jefferson. $7 to park on the grass, go screw.

Jeff Bailey, Chris Carter, Jon Van Every and Nick Green all seem like they could major league ready. Not saying they would be all stars, but if we need to call someone up to because of injuries I think these guys could hang.

Lars Anderson didn't do anything that made my jaw drop, but he's young, so I'm not going to hold that against him.

One of the many running jokes we had was calling Lugo, Drew, and Tek (batting 2-3-4 in the lineup) Murders Row!

Justin Masterson looked great. If Brad Penny isn't ready to start the season I wouldn't be opposed to him starting the year as the number 5. Arguments can be made that we should keep him in the bullpen and that the Sox can survive April with 4 starts because of built in days off.

There are a lot of cool people at Spring Training and a lot of people who piss me off. The cool people comprise of the old guys who get drunk and casually enjoy the atmosphere. The people who piss me off are the people desperate to get an autograph. When I say desperate I'm being kind, I like baseball as much as anyone but I don't feel the need to burst into tears when Chris Carter walks by, sorry Chris.

Heidi Watney is all that and a bag of chips! Saying that may contradict my previous bullet but she makes my heart flutter when she's near.

Paying $7 in total fees at the ATM made me so upset I almost walked out of the park. Really? I paid for a flight, hotel, rental car, tickets, and now you want to rake me over the coals for another $7. How high would the fees be if we did sign Mark Teixeira, christ!

Wally the Green Monster job sucks, I was burning up and it was only 80 degrees, it must have been at least 128 degrees in that suit.

15 or so of the Sox are at the WBC, including Pedroia, Youk and Ortiz. It would have been nice to see them, however I can only imagine the crowd standing in front of my seat begging for their auto graphs.

Now that I've had my fill of Spring Training I'm ready for the season to start, sadly that is another 4 weeks or so away. Look for our season predictions in the near future.

4 comments:

Tim...you left out the part about you blowing out your shoulder to hit 61 mph on the "test your speed" radar gun outside of the ball park. Are you still day to day or did work put you on the 15 day DL as a result?

Also, please don't ever do the 25 things about you thing on facebook...the world just isn't ready for it, and it would likely have too many incriminating items about me on it. Thank you.

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